Mentally Ill Teenage Girl Dies From Suffocation During Exorcism

[Natasha_LB]

Exorcism is real, but it can be hard from distincting a demonic possession from mental illness sometimes. We are only human after all.

BS!!! If you want to believe that they are real due to your religion then go ahead, but don't go straight out there and say it's real when you have no proof what so ever. Feel free to say that you "believe they are real", but don't you dare say that "they are real" with out proof. You have absolutely no evidence, so this is a belief, not a fact, so don't try and present it as a fact.

Don't get me wrong, I respect your belief, and while I don't follow any religion myself, I will defend to the death your right to do so... I just don't want you preaching your unproven views as fact.

Look at it this way... if I believed in vampires and posted the following: "Vampires are real, but it can be hard from distincting a vampire from mental illness sometimes. We are only human after all."

See how absurd that sounds, and yet I only have to change a couple of words from your post to create it. Please do not express your religious beliefs as fact on a public forum... by all means express them, but do not claim them as fact, you have no proof and never will do. And furthermore, a gaming forum is really not the place for religious discussion, so please keep it in church.

Furthermore, this tragedy would never have happened without people who believe in demonic possession (Like yourself), so you (And your spreading of beliefs that can't be proved)along with others who preach your beliefs without admitting that they are only opinion and not fact, are indirectly responsible for this poor girls death.

Please feel free to believe what ever the hell your want, just don't dare present it as if it were fact, because there are impressionable people out their, who might take your uninformed and unproved beliefs as fact, and that would be a real shame. Keep it in church from now on!

Now remember people... the only reasons this happened is because we didn't praise the flying spaghetti monster hard enough, so get down on your knees and worship him, otherwise this will happen again: lol!

 

[MortarTeam]

Buddhist exorcism? I didnt realise buddhists believed in demons.

They do in Japan! Those people mix up their native shinto with all religions there, I met a guy who was in some weird shinto/christian sect (Ancient one, dating back to 16th century Portuguese, not some modern con-man religion).
Anyway, some die because they refuse blood transfusion\ organ transplant due to their religious view (up yours, Jehowas Witnesses), don't use contraception and won't allow abortions (Holy Roman Catholic Church, Inc)... Buddhist waterboarding was bound to happen.
Really sad part is it's not people who believe in it suffer, but their children. I always thought that religious practices should not be allowed for anyone under age of 16. Or better yet, EVER.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

If some insane atheist went down the street punching babies while screaming how there is no God wouldn't you expect atheist to defend themselves when religous people tried to pin that guy on them?

No, you wouldn't. No one would defend an insane guy or girl walking down the street whilst punching babies, no matter what the hell he is chanting. Atheists can very easily ignore such implications due to the consideration of fact that atheism is simply an answer to a question ("Does God exist?"), not an ideology one follows (militant atheists tend to take their arrogance from other ego-centered ideologies and practices that they have accepted in their lives, while evangelicals take it from their usually very solidified, insular religious belief's). Which can't be said the same for someone performing an action that ends up killing someone because they believe strongly in whatever their religious inclinations have been informed of by others within their religious ideology (Confirmation Bias). Such as an exorcism.

Please try not to be entirely disingenuous here, it serves no one for the better.

 

[Nackl of Gilmed]

Anyone else notice how they apparently kept the girl face-up under running water for five minutes? Let's talk less general about demons causing mental illness and more specifically about who made that particular decision.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Literally can't believe that in the first few answers there were people going 'Yes, as a Christian I believe in exorcism'
I have nothing constructive to add. I WANT to say I hadn't even realised that people with internet access could still hold such outdated beliefs but then I've seen people selling spirit familiars online so I guess it's time to give in, we're not going to get better.

OH and for the people whining 'Aw religion bashing SO SAD'

This is about a girl who was killed by an exorcism, and I love that you've made it about how repressed you are.

Show a bit of sympathy. After all, in this era millions of christians are being persecuted by militant atheists worldwide.

How about no? Or have you forgotten the previous "era"... Does the word Crusade ring any bells? Inquisition? Holocaust? Those poor, poor christians are all about love and equality so stop being mean to their ancient ignorant beliefs, right?

Excluding violence against them, maybe they deserve it? Especially if it's just internet forum "persecution".

I do believe that was sarcasm, good sir. Or at least, I would hope for sake of reality it was..

 

[Duruznik]

I only consider the people mentioned in this scenario to be "idiots" due to the fact that they let fear attributed by their belief's overwhelm common (and better) judgment to exhaust all avenues into medical science first before they brought her to the monks to perform the ritual. If they go by such route first, I have no problem if they consider exorcism after they have exhausted those options to be "valid" for "curing" the participants mental ailments. (Not to mention, they had failed to produce any viable results from a hundred previous attempts at this ritual in the past, and not even the "right" one at that, by said religion's dogma. They really should have gotten the clue after the second or third time..)

Although I would be skeptical of the chanting and such not being adverse to a mentally unstable individual's mental health. Repeated statements and phrases are very influential upon people with schizophrenia, depression and multiple personality disorders, in usually very negative terms. After all, a horde of people chanting "demons, demons, release this individual!" over you while you are suffering from conditions that may make the paranoia of this perceived ailment your mind has convinced you you have all the more dangerous and unpredictable, I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if they suddenly start believing they are a "demon" and attack someone, or on the other side, they could go into cardiac arrest due to the overwhelming stress of the situation.

I'm sure you can see my concerns clear enough in the above, no?

True, in this case the whole thing stinks of stupid and the ordeal was probably aweful for the child, considering her mental instability (and the fact that, y'know, she DROWNED). I totally agree with ya on that one.

My point was that not ALL exorcisms are horrible acts that only do damage- sometimes it's a way for a believing family to try another venue for treatment, after medical science has failed or perhaps alongside the treatment (I agree that it shouldn't be done instead of it, that's just dumb). I'm not saying if it works or not, but my point was that not all exorcisms are inherently dangerous and/or stupid, and neither are the people doing them- despite the amount of religious bashing going on in this thread.

 

[alandavidson]

While I'm not versed in the procedures for Buddhist exorcism, I think that this particular incident has more to do with people being idiots than religion being bad.

Current Protestant Christian methods for exorcism are, in comparison to their religious counterparts, quite tame. It primarily involves commanding the demon to leave in the name of Christ, praying to God, and in many cases the pastor involved fasting. The model is built off of is this:

Mat 17:18-21 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. (19) Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" (20) He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." (21) [But this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting.]

And also passages similar to this:

Luk 9:42 While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.

In most circles, the pastor will not even touch the individual who is being exorcised.

When I worked in a church, I would recommend that congregation members seek counseling and care before attempting anything like an exorcism.

Basically, religion helps a lot of people, but there are nut jobs in every religion and belief. Just look at the people who are claiming to be 500 year-old vampires and attacking people because their psyche is unstable and they cannot cope with the real world. I would much rather have someone trying to pray satan out of a shrubbery than a kid who would kill me with his teeth.

 

[Don Reba]

If that is true then it is almost certain that there has never been a demonic possession. By your calculations 1 in 10^64 cases is actually true. Now seeing as there are nowhere near that many people on the planet (or ever have been, or probably ever will be) then we can safely say that none of them are real.

Probably? The Earth consists of fewer than 10^51 atoms. There are fewer than 10^64 atoms in our galaxy.

 

[SuccessAndBiscuts]

I'm going to use this thread to share a quote about religion from a book I've recently read its quite long and doesn't entirely match my own opinions but I feel it merits sharing in a religious debate even if the subject is more about islamic terrorism.

It was only when you stepped outside of it that you could truly take in the scale of the absurdity. The few times she had returned to a church service in the years since had been for weddings and funerals, and what she had seen from this refreshed perspective would have been funny if it didn't have such disturbing ramifications. Watching this host of adults, supposedly intelligent autonomous beings, behaving like remotely controlled mindless automatons: all simultaneously standing up, sitting down, now to their knees but resting on their bums, now forward on their knees, back on their feet, knees again, now line up, close your eyes, eat a wafer, back to your knee; and throughout chanting, chanting, all in unison, monotonal, expressionless, zombie-like. Heads nodding, Pavlovian ingrained involuntary response whenever they or someone else said the word "Jesus". She had seen it week-in week-out as she grew up and thought little off it other than "I'm bored" and "This means nothing to me" Coming back to it as an adult however, it was just scary. She was looking at mind control. Human beings reduced to puppets by sheer indoctrination, force of habit and a kind of cultural inertia: we do this because we have always done it. But as Voltaire put it: once you can get people to believe absurdities, you can get them to perform atrocities. Once people have allowed themselves to become puppets, never questioning what they find themselves doing or why then they have arrived at a dangerously negligent level of intellectual abdication, and there are some very evil people poised to exploit that.

Thus she was thoroughly fed up hearing apologists saying "It's not religion that makes them do it."

I'm of the opinion that religion as a system of belief for an individual is harmless and if anything the increased resolve it can give is a good thing. But religion as a structured organised entity with rules? That is where the problems come from.

This is tragic and was caused by peoples faith in a solution that simply did not fit the problem and a mutual assurance from an authority figure (the monk) that it was the correct course of action. Indicative of Buddhism as a whole? not by a long shot. Indicative that religion being used as a platform of authority can lead to tragic easily avoided mistakes being made? Yep.

 

[rancher of monsters]

If some insane atheist went down the street punching babies while screaming how there is no God wouldn't you expect atheist to defend themselves when religous people tried to pin that guy on them?

No, you wouldn't. No one would defend an insane guy or girl walking down the street whilst punching babies, no matter what the hell he is chanting. Atheists can very easily ignore such implications due to the consideration of fact that atheism is simply an answer to a question ("Does God exist?"), not an ideology one follows (militant atheists tend to take their arrogance from other ego-centered ideologies and practices that they have accepted in their lives, while evangelicals take it from their usually very solidified, insular religious belief's). Which can't be said the same for someone performing an action that ends up killing someone because they believe strongly in whatever their religious inclinations have been informed of by others within their religious ideology (Confirmation Bias). Such as an exorcism.

Please try not to be entirely disingenuous here, it serves no one for the better.

You misread me a bit, I didn't say you would defend him, I said you would defend your own beliefs when people try to associate you with him. I've never heard of a problem with this ritual before, nor does the article mention one, so I'm assuming the regular version is probably safe. However, here we see the priest is not only using the ritual for the wrong purpose, but he is also making it far more dangerous. That being said, is there a problem with the normal ritual, well none that I know of. So why should we look at the rest of the Bhuddhist community and tell them their beliefs are dangerous and insane now?

 

[Spongebobdickpants]

Exorcism is real, but it can be hard from distincting a demonic possession from mental illness sometimes. We are only human after all.

I have not seen one case where a doctor said,

It wasnt schizophrenia, she/he actually had an oggly boggly deamon inside her that possesed her for teh lulz

Belief in a "god" is one thing but deamonic possession.

I also assume because of your attitude of "w00ps only a mistake" that the people that murdered her should be let off free of charge.

Also these atheists saying believeing in god makes them stupid are the only stupid ones. Its naive yes, ignorant yes, but not stupid

 

[emeraldrafael]

I know it should, but it always makes me feel alittle better when I read one of these kinda stories and it doesnt come out of the deep south US.

still, thats rather tragic. I wonder whos going to shoulder the blame in this one. I dont know, I guess i cant say anything really, seeing as how Im Catholic and we dont exactly have a good track record. So yeah, tragic event.

 

[lacktheknack]

"The teenager had undergone the ritual a hundred times before"

Wow.

Anyways, the Buddhist sect's main temple even says that A. you can't exorcise with this rite, and B. they held her down, which is against the instructions of the rite.

Also, I'm going to troll 3/4 of the Escapist and say that I believe in demonic possessions. However, I'm pretty sure that in this case, the daughter acting the way she did probably had something to do with being HELD UNDER A RUSH OF WATER FOR SEVERAL MINUTES OVER A HUNDRED TIMES.

 

[Mathak]

Literally can't believe that in the first few answers there were people going 'Yes, as a Christian I believe in exorcism'
I have nothing constructive to add. I WANT to say I hadn't even realised that people with internet access could still hold such outdated beliefs but then I've seen people selling spirit familiars online so I guess it's time to give in, we're not going to get better.

OH and for the people whining 'Aw religion bashing SO SAD'

This is about a girl who was killed by an exorcism, and I love that you've made it about how repressed you are.

Show a bit of sympathy. After all, in this era millions of christians are being persecuted by militant atheists worldwide.

How about no? Or have you forgotten the previous "era"... Does the word Crusade ring any bells? Inquisition? Holocaust? Those poor, poor christians are all about love and equality so stop being mean to their ancient ignorant beliefs, right?

Excluding violence against them, maybe they deserve it? Especially if it's just internet forum "persecution".

This only shows that atheists are the real intolerant bigots in todays age. You should stop shoving your hateful religion down everyone's throat and just start voting Mike Huckabee. Afer all, you can't prove that praying really hard won't fix the economy and all other issues within 24 hours.

(And yes, this is all sarcasm. Ugh, it hurts that enough people actually say these things that I have to clarify that).

 

[IceStar100]

I too believe there is such a thing as demon possession, (I'm Christian) but I also believe that 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of all cases of believed demon possession are mistakes and are actually mental illness, and the parents are just really desperate, and that the person performing the exorcism is an probably a (well intentioned) idiot.

I'm an atheist, and you opinion is one I really respect. You believe in demons but understand that that doesn't mean that every report of them is true.

I came on expect pages of religion bashing. I?ve got to admit I?m surprised. Way to go escapees.
That all said I could see why they did it. Having that kind of child you and me both would do anything to ?fix? our child. Still sad it ended this way.